How to Create a Gantt Chart in Excel. Step- by- Step Instructions for Making a Gantt Chart in Excel. I like Excel. In companies and homes all over the world, people use Excel for everything – from a makeshift calculator to tracking massive projects. Given the software's omnipresence, it’s no wonder so many people try to repurpose it for tasks that Excel was never meant to do.

To demonstrate, I created this How to Create a Gantt chart in Exceltutorial. I'll show you how to create an Excel Gantt chart, then I'll demonstrate how the Smartsheet online Gantt chart software makes this far easier. Include the task name, start date, duration, and end date. Make your list as complete as possible. Because of Excel's limitations, adding steps or extending out may force you to reformat your entire chart. When the drop- down menu appears, choose the flat Stacked Bar Chart, highlighted in green below. This will insert a blank chart onto your spreadsheet.

Use a pre-built Gantt chart template in Smartsheet. Time to complete: 3 minutes - or - Manually create a Gantt chart in Excel. How to Create a Gantt Chart in Smartsheet. In Smartsheet, to make a Gantt chart: Select Create.

The Gantt chart template for construction projects by Tom's Planner is an easy and effective approach to project management. With all its stages, tasks and variables project management for construction can be a tricky business.

Gantt chart software, simplified. We give you a template to start with making it easy to update with your own tasks and timelines. ProjectManager.com is intuitive to use and easy to roll out to teams.

Add Start Date data. Position your mouse over the empty Excel chart and right click. Then, left click on Select Data. The Select Data Source window will appear. Under Legend Entries (Series), click Add. This will take you to the Edit Series window.

Click in the empty Series name: form field first, then click on the table cell that reads Start Date. Click on the icon at the end of the Series values field. The icon is a small spreadsheet with a red arrow (the lower icon). This will open the Edit Series window. Click on the first Start Date, 3/2 in my example, and drag your mouse down to the last Start Date. After the right dates are highlighted, click on the icon at the end of the Edit Series form. The window will close and the previous window will reopen.

Your start dates are now in the Gantt chart. Next, add the Durations column using the same procedure you used to add the start dates. Under Legend Entries (Series), click on Add.

A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart, devised by Henry Gantt in the 1910s, that illustrates a project schedule. Gantt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project. Professional Quality Excel Gantt Chart Templates - Discover why NASA and US Dept of Defence rely on Chart gantt - Free tips and advice on creating Excel Gantt Chart Templates. Easily create a gantt chart in minutes. Use our online gantt chart creator to manage, share, and publisher your gantt charts.

Click in the empty Series name: form field first, then click on the table cell that reads Duration. Click on the icon at the end of the Series values field.

The icon is a small spreadsheet with a red arrow (the lower icon). This will open the Edit Series window.

Click on the first Duration, it is 5 in my example, and drag your mouse down to the last Duration. After the durations are highlighted, click on the icon at the end of the Edit Series form. The window will close and the previous window will reopen. Your durations are now in your Gantt chart. Change the dates on the left side of the chart into a list of tasks.

Click on any bar in the chart, then right click, then open Select Data. Under Horizontal (Category) Axis Labels, click on edit. Using your mouse, highlight the names of your tasks. Be careful not to include the name of the column itself, Task.

Click on OK. Click OK again. Your Gantt chart ought to look like this: 3. The starting dates are blue and the durations are orange.

Notice your tasks are in reverse order. To fix this, click on the list of tasks to select them, then right click over the list and choose Format Axis. Select the checkbox Categories in reverse order and Close. To give your Gantt chart more space delete the Start Date, Duration legend on the right. Select it with your mouse, then hit delete.

Hide the blue portions of each bar. Clicking on the blue part of any bar will select all of them.

Then, right click and choose Format Data Series. Click on Fill then select No fill. Click on Border Color then select No line. You're almost finished. You just need to remove the empty white space at the start of your Gantt chart: Click on the first Start Date in your data table. Right click over it, select Format Cells, then General. Write down the number you see.

In my case it is 4. Hit Cancel because you do not want to actually make any changes here. In the Gantt chart, select the dates above the bars, right click and choose Format Axis. Change the Minimum bound to the number you recorded. Change the Major unit to 2, for every other day. You can play with this to see what works best for you.

Select Close. If you want to make your Gantt chart look a little nicer, remove most of the white space between the bars. Click on the top orange bar. Right click and select Format Data Series. Set Separated to 1.

Gap Width to 1. 0%. You are finished. Your Gantt chart should look like this: An Easier Way. This is a lot to remember. While your Excel Gantt chart may look clean, it is not exactly serviceable. The chart does not resize when you add new tasks. It’s hard to read.

There is no grid or daily labeling. You cannot change a start date, duration or end date and have the other values adjust automatically. You cannot share the chart with others or give them viewer, editor, or administrator status. You cannot publish an Excel Gantt chart as an interactive web page which your team members can read and update. It is possible to create more complete Gantt charts in Excel, however, they are more complicated to setup and maintain. The things that make Gantt charts useful, sharable, and collaborative cannot be accomplished with Excel.

From there, you're good to go. You can start entering your task list. Add task names for each task, two of either the start date, duration, or end date. When you enter two of these, Smartsheet populates the rest. From here, when you change any of the three variables, the other two will automatically recalculate.

The other thing Smartsheet adds automatically are your horizontal bars. Unlike in Excel, there is no need to format anything.

Smartsheet does it for you. Another well- designed feature, when you use your mouse to click and drag either end of any green bar, Smartsheet changes the matching dates and durations in the task table. From here you can add additional Gantt data such as predecessors and task groups. You can even switch to Smartsheet's calendar view.

Already your simple Smartsheet is far more functional and responsive than an Excel Gantt chart, and you're just getting started. Watch our video to learn even more. See for yourself. If you haven't used Smartsheet, try it today. Get a free 3. 0 day trial with nothing to install. Create Your Gantt Chart in Smartsheet.

What is a Gantt Chart? Gantt Chart Information, history and Software. Free 3. 0- Day Gantt Software Trial. Welcome to Gantt. This web site is designed to provide information about Gantt charts and to supply ideas that will help you create and benefit from them. A Gantt chart, commonly used in project management, is one of the most popular and useful ways of showing activities (tasks or events) displayed against time. On the left of the chart is a list of the activities and along the top is a suitable time scale.

Each activity is represented by a bar; the position and length of the bar reflects the start date, duration and end date of the activity. This allows you to see at a glance: What the various activities are.

When each activity begins and ends. How long each activity is scheduled to last. Where activities overlap with other activities, and by how much. The start and end date of the whole project.

To summarize, a Gantt chart shows you what has to be done (the activities) and when (the schedule). A simple Gantt chart. Gantt Chart History.

The first Gantt chart was devised in the mid 1. Karol Adamiecki, a Polish engineer who ran a steelworks in southern Poland and had become interested in management ideas and techniques. Some 1. 5 years after Adamiecki , Henry Gantt, an American engineer and management consultant, devised his own version of the chart and it was this that became widely known and popular in western countries. Consequently it was Henry Gantt whose name was to become associated with charts of this type. Originally Gantt charts were prepared laboriously by hand; each time a project changed it was necessary to amend or redraw the chart and this limited their usefulness, continual change being a feature of most projects. Nowadays, however, with the advent of computers and project management software, Gantt charts can be created, updated and printed easily.

Today, Gantt charts are most commonly used for tracking project schedules. For this it is useful to be able to show additional information about the various tasks or phases of the project, for example how the tasks relate to each other, how far each task has progressed, what resources are being used for each task and so on.